(For previous Leader Letters, go to: www.icoph.org/news/letters.html.)
One answer was to define clinical guidelines for eye care around the world. Nag Rao, MD, now President of the International Agency for the Prevention of Blindness, said in 2002 that ICO's development of International Clinical Guidelines "would be a major contribution to global eye care." We are fortunate that Richard Abbott, MD, who coordinated similar efforts for the American Academy of Ophthalmology, agreed to take on this challenge as ICO Guidelines Director. Since that time, the ICO's Guidelines Committee has developed 19 Clinical Guidelines, based on the model of the American Academy, and more are under development. In this ICO Leader Letter we focus on implementation of Clinical Guidelines, including a report from Dr. Abbott about an exemplary initiative of the Chinese Ophthalmological Society. I hope that you will be inspired by Dr. Abbott and our colleagues in China and make a commitment to adapting and implementing Clinical Guidelines in your country or subspecialty. - Fritz Naumann, MD, ICO President 2. Chinese Define Preferred Practice Patterns and Guidelines At the national Congress of the Chinese Ophthalmological Society (COS) in Tianjin in September, the COS will introduce proposed Preferred Practice Patterns and Process of Care Practice Guidelines covering the major subspecialty areas of ophthalmology to its members.
The proposed clinical guidelines for ophthalmology in China were defined at a two-day workshop in Beijing in June organized by the COS and supported by the ICO, World Health Organization, U.S. National Eye Institute and American Academy of Ophthalmology. The Guidelines were based on the ICO's International Clinical Guidelines (www.icoph.org/guide), 10 of which had been translated into Chinese before the workshop, and the American Academy's Preferred Practice Patterns and Benchmarks. Ophthalmologists from the major Universities and teaching centers throughout China representing the key subspecialty areas reviewed the draft Guidelines line by line and made changes where appropriate to reflect Chinese culture, resources, etc. The next steps, which begin at the COS Congress next month, are to create awareness and encourage adoption by the practicing ophthalmologists throughout China. That will be an even greater challenge! In 2006, a questionnaire will be developed to evaluate the use of the practice guidelines and ultimately their impact on the quality of care for ophthalmology patients in China. I would particularly like to recognize COS President Professor Jialiang Zhao, MD, for his dedication and hard work in leading this effort by the COS. - Richard Abbott, MD, ICO Guidelines Director and Council Member 3. Model for Implementation of Guidelines; Other Society Guidelines Requested
For a more detailed report on the Beijing workshop and the process and plans for implementing the guidelines in China, see www.icoph.org/guide/chinarp.html. Or you can download the report as a PDF file from www.icoph.org/pdf/COSguidelines.pdf. I would also be happy to send you slides describing the process, if that would be helpful to you in your country. The ICO Clinical Guidelines Committee, which met in May before the ICO meeting in Florence, also welcomes the submission of national, supranational and subspecialty society clinical guidelines for review and possible addition to or linking from the ICO Web site. Send me your clinical guidelines at guidelines@icoph.org. - Richard Abbott, MD, ICO Guidelines Director and Council Member 4. Nineteen ICO Guidelines Available, More To Be Defined We added a new ICO Clinical Guideline on Eye Disease in Leprosy recently, and there are now 19 available on the ICO Web site at www.icoph.org/guide/guidelist.html. At our meeting in May, the Guidelines Committee agreed that new guidelines should be prepared on:
The Committee is looking for experts in these fields to draft Guidelines in the same format as the existing Guidelines (www.icoph.org/guide/guideintro.html). Contact me at guidelines@icoph.org if you can help. - Richard Abbott, MD, ICO Guidelines Director and Council Member 5. Resources for Evidence-based Practice of Medicine When we met in Florence, the ICO Guidelines Committee discussed the critical importance of practicing evidence-based medicine and of defining clinical guidelines based on evidence (i.e., controlled clinical studies) whenever possible.Each practice recommendation in the ICO Clinical Guidelines is rated based on the strength of the evidence that supports it: Level I when there is strong evidence, Level II for substantial evidence and Level III when the recommendation is based only on consensus of expert opinion. Part of the workshop in Tianjin, China in June also focused on how to create evidence-based guidelines and incorporate them into practice. Here are some helpful resources on evidence-based medicine:
The 11th Oxford Workshop on Teaching Evidence-Based Practice is September 5 to 9. See www.cebm.net/view_course.asp?course_id=1 for details. 6. Deadlines Extended for World Congress in São Paulo
In response to many requests, we have extended three deadlines for the World Ophthalmology Congress, February 19-24, 2006 in São Paulo, Brazil. September 28, 2005 is the new the deadline for national societies to notify Dr. Pran Nagpal (manishad1@sancharnet.in) of the best free papers submitted to the Congress from their countries. For details and a list of the best national free papers already selected, see www.ophthalmology2006.com.br/best.php. (We will provide free registration to the first author of each of the two best papers selected by national societies.) We have also extended the deadline for registration for speakers to August 31, 2005 and for online submission of free papers to October 28, 2005. Here are the new deadlines:
For more, see www.ophthalmology2006.com.br. And don't miss the September ICO Leader Letter for news and highlights of the Congress. - Rubens Belfort, MD, President of the XXX Congress and ICO Council Member 7. Next ICO and IFOS Meetings
Other Future ICO/IFOS Meetings: www.icoph.org/lead/icomeet.html. 8. Coming in the September ICO Leader Letter: 2006 World Ophthalmology Congress in São Paulo, Brazil 9. More News For more news of the ICO and international ophthalmology and resources for ophthalmologic leaders, see the ICO's Eye Site at www.icoph.org. 10. Request for Other News and Resources Do you have other news of international ophthalmology or know resources (particularly on the Web) that would be valuable to society leaders? Please let us know at leader@icoph.org. 11. Forward the ICO Leader Letter to your Colleagues: If there are other ophthalmologic leaders you think might be interested in seeing this ICO Leader Letter, please forward this issue to them by clicking on this link. 12. Comments, Change of Address, Privacy Policy, Subscribe and Unsubscribe Send comments and suggestions for the Leader Letter to leader@icoph.org. You are subscribed as recipient@youraddress.com. Change your address by sending e-mail to: leader@icoph.org. We do not share e-mail addresses with anyone else. Check our privacy policy at: www.icoph.org/ic/privacy.html. To subscribe to the Leader Letter, visit www.icoph.org/news/subscribe.html. To unsubscribe, reply to this e-mail and type “unsubscribe” (without the quotes) as the subject, click on the unsubscribe link at the bottom of this page, or send an e-mail to leader@icoph.org. You can read this ICO Leader Letter online at www.icoph.org/news/leader0508.html. For previous issues, go to www.icoph.org/news/letters.html. Copyright © 2005 International Council of Ophthalmology. All rights reserved.  International Council of OphthalmologyHome | News | About ICO/IFOS | ICOFoundation | Contact | Find |
